Push It
by John Bigboote
Summary: I wrote a pre-emptive Astral Chain fanfic.
1. Safeties Off

The moon was visible as it glowed with the dynamic green and magenta lights of the surrounding city block. A pair of landing modules were approaching the curved profile of the object's surface and preparing to make contact.

Akira never started off her day thinking routine patrol duty in the slums would wind up going to work in her bum. The mechanical stinger of a customized Waspinoid Mk. IV poked her exposed rear and slowly slid into the gluteus muscle with ease. There were two needles spaced a few inches apart on a single automated arm. There was one needle for each firmly toned cheek and they administered their venom in synchronized unison. Dingy synth-heavy club music was booming from some nearby corner of the block, and the sharp pinch to her rear made Akira flinch with a breathy _"Aah!"_ that almost sounded like part of the beat. The bass dropped just as the syringes started injecting their contents.

A mistimed high kick and few cartwheels in the wrong direction had led to Akira feeling sore in the hind quarters. The Waspinoid was locked behind her shoulders like a second backpack and had its spindly metal legs wrapped around her ribs and waist. After it had grabbed hold of her from behind, its buzzing motors floated at a constant height and held her a steady three feet off the ground. Her back was slightly reclined and her knees were held up to the same height as her chest so she was more or less sitting in the air with her butt hanging toward the ground. Two of the Waspinoid's smaller claws designed for item handling had quickly located the waistband on the back of her black thigh shorts and pulled down the trunks far enough to reveal her designated injection sites. Now the needles were planted in the soft mass behind her hips and shooting her up with unknown synthetics. A pair of plungers steadily descended through the two clear tubes to show how many mLs Akira's cheeks were still set to receive.

The rest of the gang-controlled drones she'd been fighting were just circling around her while the Waspinoid went about his business. She could already tell some of drones were equipped with the same types of needles designed for you-know-where in case the first shot wasn't enough to take down her famous buns of steel.

Her ankles swung in the air in slowing aerobic reps as an indeterminate number of illegal chemicals found their way into her perky hind flanks. Once she'd gotten over the surprise of that initial pinch, she let her body stay in its upright seated position and made a constant cantankerous face that said she'd rather just get this particularly sleazy and uncomfortable moment of her life over with. The Waspinoid strapped to her shoulders was only following its programming and trying to help both of them have a good time.

No rubbing alcohols or dabbing cloths had been used to sterilize the droplets of sweat trickling down Akira's rounded injection sites. Likewise, the stinger on the Waspinoid had traces of industrial soot that hadn't been cleaned off before being put to use. It had all been a very spontaneous affair where the drone exposed his bumper, Akira exposed her bumper, and then just they forced their respective parts to line up together at the first chance they got. The multi-function stinger had the benefit of being calibrated in advance for the precise purpose of docking in Akira's rear cheeks, but Akira's end of the equation couldn't say the same thing.

Her shorts were pushed in a wrinkled heap three-quarters of the way down her posterior so the stinger had decent access to its target with little preparation. The top of the window revealing her moon to the neon nightlife was framed with the POLICE logo on the back of her belt so everyone would know those sweet cheeks were city ordinance.

When the plungers pressed all the way up against the goosebumps on the surface of her perks and transferred their last drops into her gluteus fibers, the Waspinoid withdrew its dual stinger and gradually let her feet hang toward the ground. The drone's smaller claws pulled her nylon shorts back up her fanny and left her on her way without so much as a courtesy slap.

Akira walked away from her experience looking more than a little angry. Well, more like wobbled away. Everything from her head down to her waist felt okay, but once she got below the belt, she felt like she was walking on two sticks of beef teriyaki barely held together with pocky wrappers. From there she quickly realized she must have been shot up with designer tranqs formulated to reduce her leg strength and slow down all of her jumping, flipping, and kicking. The nerves and muscles going down her legs stabilized enough so she'd be able to walk and maybe take short sprints, but they weren't doing much more than that. She couldn't rely on any of the skills tied to her lower body reflexes to take out the rest of the drones surrounding her in the street.

Well, that was just wonderful. So the scumbags down in Sector E had whipped up a special product that crippled her specific forte. Maybe they even called it Akira Reducing Juice and guaranteed it would make those nice curves all show and no go. She only hoped they had made the same considerations for her macho twin brother so he was currently getting his balls sawed off on the other side of town.

Akira needed backup for her backup. She pulled her pistol from her belt and hoped the rest of these guys didn't have some other kind of basement-brewed synthetics they could pump her up with to throw off her aim.

* * *

_Author's note: This weirdo bit of delightful trashiness was inspired by the Asstral Chain box art. _

_Author's note 2: When I was writing this, at first I was thinking in terms of how this could feasibly work as a gameplay mechanic. Like, WHOOPS you got grabbed, EEK you got poked, and now some of your character's abilities are nerfed for a set 30-60 second interval. But then I started thinking about what if this is death by ASSassination and the effects are completely permanent. I was thinking about how Neuromancer had the thing about cyberpunk gangbangers using synthetic toxins that destroy nerve endings in a very specific way so the main character wouldn't be good at his hacking job anymore. Maybe this story could be like the Asstral Chain equivalent of that. _


	2. Buttcheeks Reloaded

A pair of syringes finished injecting Akira's naked flanks with their medicine and carefully withdrew on a metal lever. The machine behind her released steam across her backside to warm the toxins in her muscles and increase their potency. She slid the rear of her shorts back up with a quick pull from her thumbs and a little shimmy of her hips.

As it turned out, Akira didn't need to worry about other injections that attacked more than one corner of her system. However, not being careful and taking one too many pokes to the caboose had the cumulative effect of leaving so many acids cooking her nerves that it eventually trickled back up to her brain and caused some nasty permanent changes to her personality. Within a few weeks after the first stinger drones hit the streets and Akira started receiving her sporadic unplanned injections, she became the same as any other low-life thug she used to fight. These days she was happy to slip down the back of her trunks so she could get her fix every three hours.

Akira sighed as the muscle cords in the base of her back tightened until she felt like a goddess walking on air. She slowly stepped toward another officer sprawled on the ground with a light and relaxed stride. When she was standing over the barely conscious dark-haired young man, she looked into his eyes and smiled.

"It's been a while, brother," she said. As she raised her hand to her face, she revealed she was holding a small device shaped like a toothbrush handle with a tiny circular blade screaming at its end. Her smile turned demented.

"Now let's help you get lightened up."

* * *

_Author's note: Sometimes men take matters into their own hands._


End file.
